Flower Power Trip

by James J Cudney

  “Do you believe one of them killed my brother?” she asked.

  “I think it's highly possible. Karen is the only person I haven't had a one-on-one conversation with, but you have.” I wasn't sure how to move forward next, but Karen definitely hid key information.

  “She's wily and talks in circles. Let's think through it overnight. Then we can hatch a plan to confront her tomorrow,” Ursula suggested.

  “The Mendel flower show starts on Monday. Maybe we'll catch her off-guard while she's trying to get ready for it?” I said before hanging up the phone and preparing for bed. It had been a long day and too many miscellaneous facts had been dropped at my footsteps. I had a strong inclination the answer was buried somewhere in the details of what I'd already learned, but I couldn't connect the dots.

  Chapter 18

  On Sunday morning, Emma and I met my parents at church. My family grew up Catholic, attended weekly mass, and celebrated all the major holidays, but beyond that, we weren't particularly religious. I wasn't sure what I believed anymore, but Emma needed to learn as much about the world as possible. She could make her own decisions about where religion fit into her life once she was old enough.

  I suggested a family dinner for Thursday evening since that was also the day of the mayoral election. We could spend the afternoon together and support Nana D once she won. She had to win, I'd convinced myself. Aunt Deirdre would want to see everyone, and I had the biggest surprise of all, assuming Gabriel showed up. I was half convinced he'd take off beforehand, but I had to keep focused.

  Emma went home with my parents for a few hours. She wanted to select new perennials for their flower garden. Since I was planning to confront Karen Stoddard at some point that day, I was more than happy to let my daughter spend some quality time with her grandparents.

  When I arrived at the Pick-Me-Up Diner, Eleanor was chatting with Connor. I was meeting Ursula and Myriam for brunch to discuss everything we'd learned the day before. I waved to them and took a seat across from my two bosses. “Morning, ladies. Are you as starving as I am? Chef Manny makes the best Belgian waffles covered in real maple syrup and—”

  “A diabetic coma? How lovely for you, Mr. Ayrwick,” Myriam blasted. “My wife has learned she has a long-lost nephew, her family's antique knife was used to kill her brother, and her entire sordid past is about to become a public relations nightmare. And the only thing you can bring up is food! Well, I've got news for you, you poisonous bunch-backed toad—”

  “M, please don't overreact. Kellan was simply—” Ursula attempted to squelch the battle of puns about to be unleashed, but it was unsuccessful once another of Myriam's humorous tirades interrupted.

  “ 'He hath eaten me out of house and home, he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his.' The man is truly a selfish and useless waste of space on our campus, my darling. How do you continue to put up with him?” Myriam exploded with pent-up frustration.

  “Oh, Myriam. That's the second quote this week from Henry IV. I thought you were more careful than that with your invectives,” I replied, suppressing a desire to gloat with a song and dance.

  “Stop antagonizing her, she only responds with more—” Ursula warned.

  “At least I know what plays the lines come from, thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog! You boil, a plague sore on my—” Myriam shouted.

  “As opposed to saying something original? Are you incapable of insulting me with your own fresh barbs? Must you always use five-hundred-year-old phrases that make you sound just as antiquated?” Oops, I might have gone a little too far. She was my boss after all.

  “Enough!” Ursula screamed at the top of her lungs. Complete silence suddenly overtook the diner. Every patron in the place turned to look at our table.

  When I looked at Myriam, she nodded. “Sorry folks,” I announced to the room. “We're rehearsing lines from this summer's upcoming theatre production at Paddington's Play House. We got carried away with our love of the script.”

  “Please come check it out, we're looking forward to seeing everyone there,” Myriam added. Knives and forks scraped plates again, giving my table a chance to calm down.

  “Are you two finished?” Ursula reprimanded us. “I ought to fire you both.”

  We both looked at Ursula, lowering our glasses to the tip of our noses. Myriam spoke first. “Doubtful, my darling. You love me too much.”

  Ten minutes later, we agreed Ed Mulligan hid something, Anita Singh behaved strangely, and that it was my turn to push Karen for answers. If Ursula approached the former assistant from her parents' laboratory about Cheney being Hans's son, it might prevent us from learning anything else.

  “I'll talk to her about the flower show and transition into her relationship with your brother. If she doesn't tell me exactly how and when she reconnected with him again or what he was up to, then I'll spring the truth on her.” I dug into my Belgian waffles. They were so delicious, I even offered a piece to Myriam. She declined with only a frown. I wanted to tell her that frowning caused wrinkles, but I promised Ursula I'd be on better behavior mode.

  “Meaning?” Ursula asked for clarification.

  “I'll tell her I'm aware Doug isn't Cheney's father and that I'll inform the police if she doesn't fess up about Hans's ultimate motives.”

  “But you already told the police,” Ursula countered.

  “Karen doesn't know that, dear,” Myriam said. “Keep up with us now.”

  Ursula shot her wife a look that sent a chill through my body. Those two were a formidable match, and I could only imagine what kind of power struggles happened in their house.

  “April isn't going to talk to her until she has all her ducks in a row,” I reminded Ursula and Myriam as they left the diner. “I'll update you afterward.”

  “I'll also call Anita Singh and Ed Mulligan into my office today to find out what's going on between them,” Ursula replied.

  Before leaving, I stopped by Eleanor's office to check on her and Connor. “Hey, kids. What's going on? Brunch was delicious.”

  “That was quite a scene you caused earlier,” Connor jested as he stood and shook my hand. “You really ought to be acting in those productions on campus.”

  “Oscar-worthy, huh?”

  He nodded. “Are we still meeting at the gym tomorrow before your classes?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed. I planned to attend the flower show in the afternoon, so we'd agreed to an eight o'clock morning workout. “Anything new from your bestie on the George Braun murder?”

  Connor shook his head. “Nah, nothing April's shared recently.” He attempted a smile in Eleanor's direction, but it was an awkward one given he didn't want to mention anything in front of my sister about Maggie or her family.

  “I'm sure Helena will get bail tomorrow,” Eleanor said. She opted to be the brave one and not hide behind the elephant in the room. “You can talk about Maggie, guys. We're all adults.”

  “Just being careful,” I said looking at Connor's relaxed reaction.

  “I've got something to discuss with you tomorrow at the gym, Kellan. It's important,” Connor said as he stood. “But I need to do my rounds on campus right now. I'll see you all soon.” He glanced at me, then at Eleanor deciding what to do. Eventually, he kissed my sister's cheek and left the diner.

  “Phew, that was fun. He must be such a romantic, it goes directly over my head!” I said.

  “You can be a nuisance sometimes!” Eleanor scolded me and left her office to check on the main dining room.

  I drove downtown to the Simply Stoddard catering offices. Karen had been avoiding me all week. Sunday brunch was a memorable event in Braxton, she had to be onsite helping her husband run the new restaurant. When I walked into the main vestibule, a hostess greeted me and asked how many members in my party.

  “None. What happened to Cheney?” I thought he was usually at the front desk. Maybe his hangover prevented him from working today.

  “He just fills in during the week on
occasion. I'm the hostess most nights and weekends. How can I help you?”

  “Are Doug and Karen around?” I asked the young woman, noticing her solid hospitality skills.

  She pointed to the door on my right. “Karen is working in the office over there. Doug is in the kitchen cooking. I think Sierra is helping her father today. Cheney was supposed to stop in, but he wasn't feeling well.”

  I smiled and thanked her. She greeted a couple who'd walked in behind me while I pushed open the door to Simply Stoddard's catering offices and called out for Karen.

  “May I help you?” she said, standing from behind the desk. When I came into view, she looked upset. “Oh, Kellan. I know you left a few messages. It's been unexpectedly crazy around here lately.”

  “I've heard. I ran into your daughter, Sierra, yesterday.”

  “I'm actually quite busy right now. Maybe we could make an appointment for next week if you need to plan an event.” She sat back down and moved the mouse. Her computer screen lit up, but I couldn't see what was on it from the other side of the desk.

  “I had a few questions for you. Surely, you can spare a few minutes for me right now. Maggie and Millard have said nothing but wonderful things about working with you.” I wasn't lying, both had praised the work Simply Stoddard had done for them.

  “Look, I don't mean to be rude, but you got my son drunk yesterday. You've been asking questions about us all around town. People talk a lot about how you like to get involved in private situations you don't belong in. I don't have time for idle gossip or manufactured small-town drama.” She waved her hand at the door, indicating I should leave.

  “Now I see where Cheney gets his customer service skills.” I wasn't going to debate my involvement in other people's situations, but I was always asked to do the investigation. “I'll consider leaving if you give me the name of one person who said anything negative about me.”

  “I'll give you two, then maybe I can also skip our second meeting.” She didn't bother to look up as she typed away on the keyboard. “Ophelia Taft and Myriam Castle. Goodbye.”

  Ophelia, I could understand. I had words with the woman a few times while determining if she had something to do with her mother's death earlier that year. Myriam would disparage me on most occasions, but she wouldn't have done it while I helped her wife. “When and what did Myriam say?”

  “Myriam contacted me to plan a cast party for a recent show. Probably a month ago, but she ultimately decided not to spend the money. She mentioned I should ignore anything you brought up, but you and I've never had the pleasure of meeting. Is that all?”

  I knew it wasn't recent. Myriam must have been excluding me from the King Lear celebration at one point in time. I'd ultimately convinced her to hold the cast party at the Pick-Me-Up Diner, which is why she never went with Simply Stoddard. “Fine, we can play it this way. I'll take my questions about George Braun being Cheney's biological father to Sheriff Montague. Have a good day, Lambertson.”

  I turned and walked back into the vestibule, then tried to leave the building. Karen called out, but I ignored her. She finally rushed from the office, grabbed my arm as I stepped into the outdoor patio, and dragged me back to the desk. “On second thought, now might be a fine time for us to chat, Kellan. How did you know my maiden name was Lambertson?”

  “A mutual friend told me. How kind of you to consider sticking around right now. I'll be sure to remember the best way to motivate you in the future, that is, assuming you don't end up in prison for killing Hans Mück.” Karen responded to threats, which meant the more I could frighten her, the more she might consent to tell me everything she knew.

  “What exactly do you know?” she asked. Most of her face blanched white, but her cheeks brightened like two shiny red delicious apples when I said the name Hans Mück.

  “No, I'm in the driver's seat right now. If only you'd been more open-minded in the beginning, we could've had a quiet, civilized conversation about the past.” I took a seat across from her, rested my right foot and leg on my left knee and put my hands behind my neck. “Tell me whatever you'd like. I'll give you a few hints. You already know I'm close with the Roarke family and that Helena didn't kill him. I work for Ursula Power, who's shared her past as Sofia Mück. She also didn't kill her brother.”

  “I didn't kill him either!” Karen snarled.

  “Maybe someone in your family murdered him. The sheriff will figure it out eventually, but I'm giving you this opportunity to help me help you. If we can work with each other, everyone could come out of this disaster without getting further singed.”

  “Fine! The Mücks hired me to work in their lab right after I graduated from college. I was fascinated by their research and spent a lot of time with their son, Hans. I'd been helping them with a bunch of experiments, mostly documenting results each night and early morning.”

  “That explains Doug's slip last week about you working late nights.”

  She nodded. “Hans flirted with me. He was smart and worldly. I fell in love, but he was too focused on making a name for himself. I'd met Doug one night at a bar. He paid a lot of attention to me, and I threw myself at him. Next thing I know, Hans asked for my help to fudge test results at the lab. I didn't want to do it, but he told me once he got famous, he wanted to marry me and travel the world.”

  “Hans took advantage of you,” I said. It had happened more often than people realized. “But you didn't know it at the time.”

  “Exactly. He would sneak breaks with me to hold my hand or make out with me in the closet. I thought he was serious. Then he asked me to switch some chemicals to invalidate his parents' experiments. He was running the same experiments but with excessive amounts of glycerine and other fertilizers. He had me buy and store substantial amounts of it in the lab. I'd no idea someone would purposely create a fire that day.”

  A pit began to deepen in my gut. Ursula thought she was only creating a small boom to stop Hans from hurting their parents. “You caused the explosion that killed him.”

  Karen threw her head against the desk and began crying. “Yes, it was my fault.”

  Ursula didn't know about this part. “You need to tell me everything right now.

  Karen continued to explain what'd happened twenty-five years ago. She'd kept all the Mücks accurate results in a separate file cabinet. Hans didn't want them to leave the lab, but he also didn't want anyone to know about what he was doing.

  “I thought Hans died in that explosion for the last twenty-five years. Once his sister told me what she had done, I realized I was to blame but couldn't tell the police. So, I leaked it to the press that she had caused the explosion and destroyed all the results. They were close to finding a cure for certain forms of cancer.”

  “What happened next?” I shook my head at the damage Hans Mück had caused over the years.

  “A few weeks later, I found out I was pregnant. Once I knew the timing, I figured out Hans was probably my baby's father, but he was gone. I liked Doug well enough, so I told him he'd gotten me pregnant. It was only a few weeks difference, he didn't think to ask questions.”

  At that point, Karen left Sofia alone because she had to move on. Sofia ran away and became Ursula Power. Karen moved around the Midwest with Doug, had Sierra a few years later, and pretended the past never happened.

  “I loved working with plants and flowers, running laboratories, and being part of something complex and challenging. I eventually got into planning medical conferences and fundraisers. When my daughter, Sierra, chose to attend law school in London, I visited her more often and even accepted a couple of event planning jobs over there. That's how I ran into Hans. He'd been running the Mendel flower show in Europe and planned to take it to the United States at some point.” Karen explained that Hans had earned a name for himself as George Braun, a botanist who taught at various medical schools and colleges. He'd still been trying to recreate the experiments from years ago, but he never could find the right balance of all the formulas and inpu
ts. He believed his sister would remember them.

  “How did you end up getting to Braxton?” I asked, feeling unclear how it brought everyone to my hometown.

  “I wanted to confess the truth, but he seemed so different. I decided not to tell Hans about Cheney until I got to know him a little better again. Hans, going by the name George at that time, pressured me to remember as much as I could about the experiments, but it wasn't enough. I went back home and would occasionally talk to him on the phone.” At that point, Karen wasn't sure how it had happened, but George told her he'd found his sister again. She was living in Braxton, Pennsylvania, and he'd asked Karen to move to Braxton and help him rediscover the cure again.

  “Now I understand how you got to Braxton, but what does Doug know?”

  “Doug knows nothing about this. I convinced him we could start over here. That's when we decided to open the restaurant for him to focus on, and I set up the event management company.”

  “Is it real, or a cover to help George?”

  “Completely legitimate. My company helped George coordinate and transition the Mendel flower show to the United States. He was using all the plants in his experiments to find a cure.”

  “Why did you agree to help him after all these years?”

  “At first, it was because Doug and I were having problems. Cheney had gotten into some legal troubles back in Chicago. Doug and I were thinking about splitting up. I thought I had a chance with Hans again. After we got situated in Braxton, Hans and I grew close. I told him I never stopped loving him and that…” she paused and stood behind the desk.

  “What?”

  Karen was panicking about something. “Is someone there?” She rushed past me and into the vestibule. When she came back in, she looked frightened.

  “Was someone listening?”